A huge job for the boys

The minister for police, security and community safety tells Julie Bindel how he wants men to take a more responsible attitude towards domestic and sexual violence against women - and to spread the word to others

Vernon Coaker, the minister for police, security and community safety. Photograph: Martin Argles

Vernon Coaker, junior Home Office minister responsible for police, security and community safety, is championing in parliament a campaign, aimed at men, against domestic and sexual violence. "The majority of men don't abuse women, but there is a responsibility on men to speak up and speak out about it," he says. "The noise that men have made about it in the past has never been loud enough. I think that's a perspective I can bring to the whole discussion."

Coaker is pushing forward the need to debate tricky issues such as rape, sexual assault and male demand for prostitution, and repeatedly emphasises how proud he is to be part of a process of engagement with citizens about a topic as emotiveas violence towards women. "I have always tried to be frank and upfront about things, and to go out of my way to engage," he says. "For me, it is not about just maintaining the status quo, but looking at effective ways to deal with the problems."

With a brief that includes serious and organised crime, public order, sex offences, drugs, animal extremism, internet crime and football disorder, to name a few, reducing violence towards women is not his only commitment. However, his legacy is likely to be that he helped to make men accountable for rape and domestic violence, and to change minds and attitudes, as well as crime statistics and conviction rates.

"This is about the sort of society and communities we want to live in," Coaker says. "It is about men challenging other men's behaviour." Although he has become well-respected among women's organisations that deal with domestic and sexual violence, there is nothing arrogant in his approach. "The women's movement has done a fantastic job foregrounding this work," he says, "What I want to do is to continue making it mainstream."

Recently, Coaker has been working alongside the Men's Coalition - an organisation supported by counselling service Relate; the Fatherhood Institute; and children's charity NCH, which aims to get men speaking out on issues such as domestic violence, rape and fatherhood. "The coalition has the potential to challenge the negative and often destructive culture that has such a detrimental effect on our families, children and ultimately ourselves," Coaker says.

Prostitution review

Tackling the controversial issue of prostitution is high on Coaker's agenda. Earlier this year, he led a delegation to Sweden and the Netherlands, accompanied by Vera Baird, the solicitor general, and Barbara Follett, the parliamentary secretary for equality, as part of a review on the demand side of prostitution.

While brothel prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000, in Sweden, it is a criminal offence to buy or attempt to buy sexual services. What impressed Coaker about the Swedish model was the broad consensus of citizens in supporting such a law. "So many of the people we spoke to in Sweden were as concerned about the statement the law made about having a criminal offence to buy sex as they were about the practical outcomes," he says. "It was the statement it makes about the sort of society its citizens want it to be."

In Britain, street prostitution, particularly in the aftermath of the Ipswich murders and the trafficking of women into brothels from overseas, is generally viewed as abuse and coercion, Coaker believes, but the sticking point is trying to get the public to think about the sex industry as an abusive industry.

But thanks to his and other ministers' interventions, the mood music is beginning to change."If the government had announced that it was doing a review of demand, and was even considering criminalising the purchasing of sex, two, three years ago, there would have been an outcry," Coaker says. "The fact that there was not a peep demonstrates just how far we have come."

Flagging up abuse

I recently heard Coaker being affectionately referred to as the prostitution tsar. Does he mind? He bursts into peels of laughter, but it is obvious he is pleased that he is perhaps best known for his work in flagging up the abuse within the sex industry. "I haven't heard that, but I don't mind it at all," says Coaker, adding that he recently met men and women involved in prostitution to consult them on what their experience of the industry can bring to the review.

What is interesting for Coaker is the response he gets when speaking publicly about issues such as rape, when traditionally women in parliament are put forward on such matters. "Of course, there are male victims of domestic violence, and male victims of rape, but by and large the majority of the victims are women, and the perpetrators are males," he says.

With rape, Coaker says, we need to focus on the appalling situation where only 5.4% of reported assaults make it to court - the lowest ever. "Once a rape case gets to court, there is a 34% chance of conviction, which is not so bad." He is concerned, however, that only a few hundred cases get to trial from more than 13,500 reports to police.

Again, the key issue for Coaker is public education. "You make the absolute assertion that rape is a criminal act, one of the most heinous we know, and there will be consequences. It is about teaching respect, and educating men to bring about attitudinal change. It is a massive step forward to discuss these things. Now the challenge is how we move things forward."

What about Coaker's plans for the future? While acknowledging the importance of legislation and the role of the criminal justice system, his aim is to prevent crimes from occurring in the first instance. Coaker gives as an example a recent Home Office campaign seeking to educate men about the abuse inherent in the off-street sex industry. A poster, put up in nightclubs, men's toilets and sports venues, aimed at men who are thinking of or who already do visit brothels, bears the slogan: "Walk in a punter, walk out a rapist" - referring to the fact that trafficked women are forced into the sex industry, and therefore cannot consent to sex.

"We have been deliberately hard-hitting," he says. "You imagine using that slogan a couple of years ago. There would have been uproar."

Is Coaker proud of his achievements so far? "It is a privilege to do this work," he says. "I am not arrogant - I know others have trumpeted this cause, but what I am trying to do is to make a real difference out there. This partnership of men and women taking a stand against rape and other forms of domestic and sexual violence can only be a good thing. I hope it is only the start."